I estimated somewhere between $200-299. I know my tea drinking slows down in the summer, but then again, there are iced teas so who knows where that will lead. I've spent $50ish stocking up on larger tins and bags of things that I enjoy so far this year. I know I will be spending more refilling certain teas when I run out, namely various greens and my late night Rooibos collection. I also plan on getting some oolong samples, so that may raise my estimate a bit more if I like them. All I know is that spending $6 to $10 a week on canned soda is much more expensive so I can't complain too much.

Andy and Salsero, Zhu ye Qing is really great tea. A little hard to find, but worth the effort. I think it is also one of the few greens that ages gracefully and actually gets better.

I am a little under the weather, but convinced I would be much worse off without all the green tea I have been drinking. Everyone else around here who has had this stomache virus before me was much worse off if you follow my drift. Ugh.

So, I am sipping green tea rather gingerly and hoping for the best and fearing the worst.

I have kabuse cha in my cup. Even though I feel like crap, this still tastes really good.

I figure 300 grams of Japanese will run me 60-80 bucks a month. Add the extras and I am over a grand. I do not regret this at all since it gives me such pleasure each and everyday. Heck, it is 3 bucks a day. There are so many people here at work who spend that on there morning super sized gimungous cup of coffee in their cardboard cup. Nope, no regrets at all. Each time I brew my tea, I am just happy to be able to enjoy the experience.

3 bucks a day is a bargain for all the enjoyment I derive from the leaf.

Throw in some oolong, and some Chinese green and I am easily over a grand. Good news though. I have received adagio tea as gifts for several years now. It is funny, that is how I found TeaChat. But I get a few lbs each year as gifts.

I started the day with Yunnan Golden Kingdom from Todd&Holland. It is wonderfully smooth, beautiful color, no speck of bitterness. But it is boring. Flat somehow, does not have spark to it to justify the amazing cost of the sample. I took my second brewing of it with lemon and cane sugar. I don't think I will be buying this one again soon, it is good, very good, but not good enough justify the price tag.

With that finished I am now thinking about Kusmi tea for the afternoon. I have to decide between Anastasia and Flower Bouquet #108. It is a hard choice.

I don't have much history buying tea, but I guess my budget for 2008 will be somewhere in $300 - $400 area, because I will be trying things and figuring out what I like. So some of that money will go into leaf that is headed for the garbage disposal. The price of knowledge...

Day is almost over here. I had a Keemun Mao Feng and will have a Rooibos in a few minutes to end the day, my fifth tea of the day.
I hope I will get tomorrow my o-cha Kaoru Supreme Matcha. I am currently in vacations and it is a perfect time to experiment with new tea.

Talk about some tea ballllllllerrrrsss! I don't know what my tea budget will really be throughout the year, but if we were to combine it with my gourmet food stuffs budget, then I can see myself eclipsing that 1000$ mark

Started the day off with 2 cups of golden monkey, then 4 cups of some fancy formosa...then it started snowing, so more tea more tea!!!! I've been doing some blending, and I made this excellent Cupcake LUVV blend, and I added some sprinkles for sweetness and to make it pretty...

I guesstimated around $1000-1299 for this year. I have a bunch of tea I need to explore more in depth. Formosa oolong is high up on this list and also high in price. Then there is that alluring green powder I've been wanting to try. Wuyi oolongs, Korean greens, Darjeeling whites, and I still need to try some gyokuro. Maybe I should have picked "or more" in the poll.

Today I started with some Fukamushi maki. Now I'm drinking some silver needle out of my new Bodum pavina cup. I like these cups but I'm scared they may not last long due to how fragile they feel.